A blog about media and technology. Sorry, no cat GIFs.

Socially Awkward Media: Get with the times edition

Yahoo dot gov

One of the web’s oldest companies is having a bad month. First, news broke that nearly half a billion Yahoo email accounts were hacked and users’ information put up for sale on the Dark Web. That’s bad. What’s also bad is the story that came out this week reporting that Yahoo helped the NSA snoop incoming emails for its users.

In other words, Yahoo managed to draw the fury of people concerned about piracy AND privacy. How long before we all just go back to snail mail for our correspondence?

Your move, Keystone State

Pennsylvania outlaws the “ballot selfie,” as do many states. The law isn’t specific; you won’t find that phrase in any statutes. But the state nonetheless prohibits taking a picture of your ballot on Election Day and posting it to social media.

That had been the case in Virginia, until this week. That commonwealth’s attorney general said the ballot selfie is not illegal, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the election. Last month, a federal judge ruled that New Hampshire’s law banning the ballot selfie was unconstitutional.

It would be nice if Pennsylvania made some kind of similar ruling clarifying the law for voters here. Why would you want to take a ballot selfie? You might not. But don’t you want to know if you COULD?

Swing and a Ms.

Brooks Marlow is a minor-league baseball player who made a major-league sexist remark. On Wednesday night he tweeted a criticism of ESPN baseball broadcaster Jessica Mendoza during the Giants-Mets game. Did he disagree with her analysis on pitching? Did he object to her commentary? Does she sound as idiotic as Skip Bayliss?

No, Marlow hates Mendoza because she’s a woman. He tweeted “no lady needs to be on espn talking during a baseball game especially Mendoza sorry.” Points to him for at least capitalizing her name. But Mendoza, a former professional softball player and ESPN commentator since 2015, has as much right to be in the broadcast booth as anyone.

Marlow, meanwhile, spent this season in single-A baseball. To his credit, he did apologize before even finishing the tweet. Let’s hope his future tweets are a little more up to date with the times.